looking back exo had a long history of forgetting choreo(particularly kai) and not remembering certain things that went on, they had long breaks within the industry. A majority of there career's was other ventures like modeling, acting etc. I believe $m just does the ent stuff for show and is more focused on making their idols a commodity outside of idol dom. I believe they and other sm idols don't really take it seriously. remember kai "trained' in ballet only for a few years before his father pushed him to audition for sm twice. He also would film him and send video's to all the big ent companies until he landed kai auditions. The ballet thing was just apart of the special marketing sm does for it's artist. Kai is a dancer but the main focus like every child star was just for him to be famous, he posted some professional headshots he took as a child, meaning his parents wanted him to be famous more than anything. One of his best friends he still hangs around to this day was a child actor and an sm trainee. Every trainee has their own bragging point. Due to the timeline that was given there's no way he spent more than a couple years max dancing ballet. He spent more time learning "idol dance" which is just a combo of hip hop and he says that's his weakest point. What I'm saying is even the main dancer's in kpop aren't "trained" nearly as much as fans or the public thinks they are that's a fact. Most of their training is mk ultr@ and making sure they are the perfect obedient industry puppets. This is true of all celebs. Even the best actors aren't really that good many just attend special acting schools that teach them old world techniques to push them into certain zones. This is what people would call alters, or possession different names for the same thing. Above everything it's about politics and playing a part on the world stage. I find it interesting many don't speak of that on the kpop tag because it's just as relevant as kpop. Korea only has about 20 elite families I believe most idols come from one or a combination of the ch@ebol families. Nobody in korea gets a leg up without being connected or supported. Especially now that being an idol in korea means worship why wouldn't those elite families want that worship. Many foreign kpop idols are from very rich families but in korea all the idols act poor or normal when the average person is struggling and can definitely not afford dance classes or to let their child drop out of school, it's seen as insane not to shoot for a ivy league school there's no way parents are letting their poor children dance around for fun. But the elite control the media so the narrative is air tight across the board. Most never show their parents.